Doctor Who_ Battlefield Part 7

'Plain, roasted peanut, onion gravy or cauliflower cheese flavours.'

'Plain.'

Pat turned back with the drinks and crisps. 'h.e.l.lo, Shou Yuing. What'll it be?'

'Half a cider.'

Ace and Shou Yuing watched as the Doctor began another of his pocket-slapping sessions. He eventually dumped a disparate selection of coins on the counter.

'Four pounds ninety-five please, sir.'

Ace's jaw hit the counter.

'Inflation,' muttered the Doctor. They watched as he sorted out Pallistratum Gromits from seven-and-three-eighth Rlarix Sovereigns. Something shaped like a small mechanoid crab sidled out of the pile of coins and headed across the bar.

The Doctor slapped away Shou Yuing's hand as she tried to poke the object. 'Do you mind, that's a very valuable piece of currency!'

He pocketed the little crustacean and paid Pat for the drinks with a 1998 five pound ecucoin.

Chapter 5.

As Bambera turned along the road leading to Vortigern's Lake, her car communicator cracked into life. Things were looking up. She snapped the mike from its cradle and put a direct access to Centcomp.

The line clicked and a woman's voice said, 'Centcomp here. State request and authority. Over.'

'Authorization: Toni-Cade-Sigma. Search subject, male.

The Doctor, reference UNIT UK, Yeti, Cyberman, Auton, Dalek, Lethbridge-Stewart. Over.'

'Standby Seabird. Over.'

Nine seconds, enough to irritate Bambera, pa.s.sed before the clipped voice returned. 'Results: The Doctor.

Registration Doctor Smith, John. Designation Scientific Adviser UNIT UK under Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. Over.'

'Is that it? Over.'

The voice, which might have been a synthvox until then, dropped its formal tone and said apologetically, 'Just about, Seabird. Looks like it's a Hot FR/OG. Except that there's a note that says to look out for a blue police box.

Seventies type... '

Bambera stared at the blue police box, seventies type, that she was just pa.s.sing. The rest of the message was lost as she jammed on her brakes. She signed out from Centcomp and went to investigate.

The air had turned mild, but the woods were deathly quiet. Too quiet. Bambera drew her Browning automatic.

The police box was at an odd angle to the road and its door faced into the trees. Around its perimeter, the young gra.s.s was crushed. The box was pitted with scratches and scorch marks. One diamond shape hole resembled an arrow mark.

An impulse made her turn; there was a suit of armour standing a metre from her. Dull black with an emblem of entwined leaves embossed on the breastplate. Not merely a protective suit, but elegant in its lethal functionality: a thing to be worn with pride. Battered, but at one with its wearer. Only the black faceless visor reflected back the rain-sharpened sunlight. The suit's silver filigreed arm pointed a heavy-duty handgun directly at her. They faced each other for moments across gun sights. Bambera knew she was defenceless against such armour. But did the knight know that? Neither of them moved.

A twig snapped fifty metres away.

Instictively, Bambera flung herself behind the van as its rear left wheel exploded into strings of hot rubber.

There was a deep boom behind her. She saw the Black Knight firing into the woods from the cover of the police box.

As the sh.e.l.ls exploded among the trees, he stepped out from his cover and holstered the gun. Bambera watched him draw his sword and advance into the road. Apparently greetings had been exchanged and, as if by some unknown formal ritual, the real fighting could now begin.

A knight clad in plain grey armour burst from the bushes and ran yelling at his enemy. They circled for a second and then hurled themselves together in a clash of steel as their swords met overhead.

Forcing each other apart, they circled again, intent on meeting each other's moves like players in a deadly game.

But Bambera could see how every lunge of the Grey Knight was met with an easy parry. The Black Knight's swordplay was instinctive. His opponent fought by schooled method and was clumsy in comparison. He seemed reluctant to attack again, content merely to tease.

Then she saw his method. Another Grey Knight was emerging from the bushes between her and the Black Knight.

As he raised his gun to take the Black Knight from behind, Bambera emptied eight rounds from her automatic into his back.

The bullets pinged uselessly off the armour.

Swinging round, the knight aimed his gun at Bambera instead. With a yell, the Black Knight rammed him sprawling across the road. Then he turned, kicked the feet out from under his first opponent and loped away into the woodland.

Bambera watched as the others scrambled to their feet.

Ignoring her completely, they charged after their true quarry. She was astonished by their metal-clad grace.

She walked back to the command car and looked at the melted back wheel. Shame.

Inside, she found her automatic rifle, a 5.65 mm Fa-Mas. The radio was out again, but UNIT HQ would know the scenario by now and would be taking action.

She shouldered the rifle and set off walking towards the village and transport.

The weather had relented its onslaught by 10.30, allowing Doris and the Brigadier to inspect the damage to the garden. The trees were half-naked of leaves and there was a tile missing on a south-facing gable. The daffodils were flattened, but otherwise damage was minimal.

Since it had turned into a warm, bright morning, the Brigadier worked over the ground for the new apple tree.

With the changing climate, Doris had considered something more exotic, perhaps a peach. But the Brigadier was a traditionalist and they both liked apple pie.

'In your soldier days, you wouldn't have had to do that yourself,' she said.

He smiled. 'Sergeant Benton. Tree planting party at the double. Step to it, man!'

There were some bedding plants to deal with as well. He made a conscious effort not to put them in a row, because Doris would accuse him of regimenting the garden.

'What's the good of trying for a cottage garden effect if you lay the place out like Trooping the Colour?'

He fiddled with the dial on the portable television.

Fierce bursts of static-like interference from a new storm obliterated the Test score. Yet the sky was cloudless and there was no breeze. He had a nagging premonition that England were 36 for 8 against the Russian touring team.

Perhaps he would drive Doris across to Arundel tomorrow for the second day's play - if the match lasted that long. As it was, there was a pleasant restaurant overlooking Chichester Bay, where the harbour had been before the sea flooded the water meadows. They could always have lunch there.

'Alastair, phone for you.' She was standing by the french windows with the radiophone.

'Who is it?' He barely straightened up.

'It's Geneva.'

He frowned. Now what? Another reunion? Another peace conference? Another interview on the 'Today'

programme? Didn't they ever let go? He looked at the little plants in the seed tray. 'Tell them I've retired,' he called.

'Tell them I've decided to fade away.'

He heard her apologizing and saying goodbye. Moments later, she was beside him, her hand on his shoulder.

'Alastair, that was the General-Secretary.'

He stood up effortfully. His past always made her uneasy. That was why she talked about it incessantly. Well, he could soon settle her mind. 'I don't care if it was the king. I'm still retired.' He pointed down at the petunias.

'What do you think?'

'He said something about the Doctor being back.'

Lethbridge-Stewart straightened up and stared at her.

Like a summons: something he had always known would come again. A cold thrill, that his oh-so practical life could be perpetually linked with something so infuriatingly and gloriously unpredictable. And always it would be disruptive and bring chaos in its wake. And this time there were things that he did not want to be hurt. But as always, his deepest, most secret reaction was: at last.

He turned back and looked at the apple tree. 'I wonder how high it'll get,' he said.

She pressed his arm again. 'Who's the Doctor, Alastair?'

'Yes, we met Peter Warmsly,' said the Doctor, putting down his third gla.s.s of water. 'He seems very knowledgeable.'

Shou Yuing helped herself to more of Ace's crisps.

'That's one way of putting it. He has a thing about King Arthur. Digs things out of the ground by the lake. You'd think he was living the legend.'

'He is an archaeologist,' said the Doctor.

The Chinese girl sighed. 'I can't see it myself. All that patient sc.r.a.ping. I keep getting the urge to bung half a kilo of TNT down a hole and bring the lot up in one go.'

'Now you're talking,' enthused Ace.

The Doctor glanced at his eager companion in annoyance. Despite all he had shown her, she still refused to learn respect for Time's disparate patterns. 'The point of archaelogy is to carefully recover the past. Not disintegrate it.'

'It won't make any difference,' said Shou Yuing. 'The only half decent thing Peter ever found is that.' She pointed up above the fireplace to where a blackened scabbard hung.

The Doctor walked across the room from the bar and stared up at the battered relic.

Ace nudged Shou Yuing and whispered. 'You could try something with more brisence.'

'More brisence than tri-nitro-toluene? Like what?'

Ace tapped her rucksack. 'Tell you outside. He gets upset when I talk about explosives.'

They slipped out of the garden door, leaving the Doctor engrossed in the scabbard. Its antiquity was strangely familiar - like deja-vu approached from the wrong end.

Perhaps it would one day become familiar. But that was the random pattern of Time he had been trying to explain to Ace.

'Interesting, isn't it?' said Elizabeth Rowlinson.

'Yes,' he said. She had been sitting so quietly in the warm sunshine that he had almost forgotten her. She smiled, but did not move her head towards him. Her fingers left the pages of the Braille book she had been reading. 'Sometimes I can feel its presence. Silly, of course.'

Without even consulting his copy of Malory, he said, 'The scabbard is worth ten of the sword.'

'Touch it.'

He reached out cautiously and pulled away his hand fast. 'It's hot.'

At a second attempt, the scabbard was cold as stone.

Elizabeth nodded. 'Sometimes I get the strangest feeling about it.'

'What sort of feeling?'

'I can hear its quietness. It's as if it's waiting for something.'

'Something?' the Doctor muttered. 'Or someone.'

A car pulled abruptly to a halt outside and a door slammed. Peter Warmsly burst into the lounge.